The British Boxing Problem
A global pandemic and the return to work post pandemic has unmasked a scene eating itself up from within
The pyrotechnics and the glamour of Matchroom’s fight camp series did more than enough to have well wishers and brand enthusiasts proclaim that “boxing is well and truly back” in the UK. The super welterweight main event between the already battle-worn 20 somethings Sam Eggington and Ted Cheeseman promised a little and delivered more. Eddie Hearn and his one man circus is the talk of the town once again.
Across the street, perhaps jaded by the favourable and hack-like treatment his adversary has received from media, Hall of Fame promoter Frank Warren launches a PR storm to build up anticipation of the fanciful.
Frank Warren has been where Eddie Hearn is. In a position of power looking down on an ageing competitor’s base while armed with a roster of bankable commodities and a Sky TV deal. But now pushing 70 and (if certain “sources” are to be believed) struggling to garner an audience for a talented young stable, such attempts at “clout chasing” to get ahead appear feeble and wholly transparent to the educated.
Circa 2013, the shift of power in the British boxing world moved gradually from Warren to Hearn as Matchroom replaced financial instability and old fashioned fisticuffs on a Friday with a brand of high end window dressing over a product which was spectacular at best and aggressively mediocre at worst. Hearn is not a boxing man, but his commercial nous and ability to know his audience puts most to shame. And has led to significant groundbreaking events which are affixed in British boxing history.
But back to Warren’s tweet. Ten or so matchups, similar levels, high implications, sounds good, right?
Except that ten is about double the occurrences of cross promotional matchups that have occurred between both stables since that paradigm shift way back when. In the meantime we have seen renditions of “he doesn’t pay his guys on time”, “tell him I’ll front up the purse for my man” and “focus on your own fighters” from boxing’s classic reasons not to make a fight soundtrack – unavailable on your streaming services. There were brief occurrences where a struggling Warren would send guys to Sky to pick up easy money, but with a new long term broadcast deal with BT Sport secured in 2017, that practice has closed indefinitely. Rival broadcasters who have more dates to fill than talent capable of filling them will not be in the business of scratching the back of close competitors, regardless of all the Twitter goodwill gestures.
And when you are as popular as Hearn and his brand are, is there much need to collaborate domestically? Probably not, but it must soon dawn on observers that his product is as average as it has ever been, as efforts are diverted to pillaging new paymasters overseas.
The fact that Hearn has received such credit for staging fights in his own home, (something which is as much a part of the history of the sport as Donald Trump rage tweeting about China in the middle of the night) is as troubling as it is amusing. The global pandemic has put a permanent blocker on smaller hall promoters staging anything substantial, meaning that their clients will look upwards to the big boys for an olive branch. And if successful, they will become future pawns in promotional tweets when wishing to fight rivals and make an honest buck.
The conundrum is this – the two promoter system, much like the country’s political structure, is fatally flawed. Prioritising the event makers first ahead of the performers. Some will be lucky to find themselves in a position of a Tony Bellew – having made a fortune and now happily championing mediocre domestic fights on the web as a pundit. Most will fall off the wayside bemoaning a lack of opportunity and resenting a sport which promised them a world. All of this whilst the men in suits bicker on TalkSport for the sake of viewership and their feeble egos.
It is far from all doom and gloom – as long as the potential of big fights and big events like Joshua Fury (which supersedes broadcast and promotional conflict) remain, the broadcast money and subsequent opportunities will do also. But in order to get the best of what is distributed, more must be demanded. Are people happy to be mesmerised by bright lights and Wembley nights, or will people accept that the time is up for the days of exclusive agreements and fight blockers and that power needs to be taken away from the promoter and placed into the hands of the combatants? This ideal is slowly being materialised transatlantically, it is now time that the UK got on the same wavelength.
